Name Changed to Protect the Idiot

I was talking to a friend the other day about one of her family members. The family member exhibits sociopathic behavior. That got me thinking about an incident that happened during our time at Ft. Lewis.

Sgt. Snuffy shows up late for formation one day covered in blood and dirt. He tells an epic story of how he happened upon an accident on the Hwy that runs along the back side of Ft. Lewis. He found a car that left the roadway and the driver had been thrown partially through the windshield. He proceeded to render aid.

He removed the driver from the windshield and extracted a huge piece of the windshield from drivers (this is not a good idea) chest. Authorities arrived and the driver was transported to the hospital and Sgt. Snuffy was a HERO!

He received a unit citation and a few months later the unit was contacted by a national TV Show. Well, it seems they wanted to do a segment on Sgt Snuffy and were in the area doing research for said segment. This was in the days before HIPPA. If you wanted to find out names and conditions of accident victims from the hospital/fire/police depts it was no problem. They checked with all the local authorities and could not establish that an accident had occurred on that stretch of road on that date. They wanted to let the Battalion know that this "event" never happened.

That would have been nice to know before the Battalion Commander requested another award at Brigade level. Oops.

We never did find out where all that blood came from.

Thank You For Your Service

Turn your speaker's up

My Friend Is Having A Contest

Mom, who runs the "from the mind of a Mom" blog is hosting a give away. She is giving away a bunch of Blink cleaning products.
Blink makes "autocentric" cleaning products. They sound really great for cleaning up after long road trips with the kids. You know, like after they have spilled whatever they were eating and rubbed their hands all over the upholstery and windows.
I want them, I need them....ohhh I hope I win.
Check out her site and enter to win while you are there.
http://meonlydifferent.blogspot.com

The 25th Anniversary Trip to Hawaii

our trip to Hawaii

This trip was taken in May. We had a blast. It was the honeymoon we should have went on when we got married. But, ya know....I think I enjoyed myself much more now that I'm older. Plus there was money to burn. Glad we went when we did. Thank you honey.

If I ever get to go again I'll be doing all my shopping at the stadium

Moron this later Update

Ok, so i said I was going to talk about this later and I guess this is later enough already.

My specialist E-4 came home one day and said there would be a Class A inspection the next day and would I sew the unit patch on the the sleeve of his class A jacket?
Sure, no problem honey. I'm good at that sort of thing and a bit anal about that kind of stuff.

Well it was a little more difficult than I thought it would be. Getting the needle and thread thru the lining and jacket and then through the thick patch. I managed and soon had the patch sewn on in the correct spot all lined up perfectly and my stitches so small you need a magnifying glass to see them.

So, off he goes to formation the next morning....everything on his uniform was perfect.......except the patch. It was inside out. Poor hubby was the joke of the day. Seems neither one of us noticed this. In my defense the patch appeared to be the same on both sides.

That's when hubby started taking his uniforms to the cleaners and paying them a small fee to sew on patches. To this day I wonder if I subconsciously did this just to get out of that particular chore?

Molly

This is your local recruiter calling.....

Hubby got a call the other day from a local Army recruiter. Seems they still have hubby on the IRR list. He was just "checking in".

I can't wait 'til he calls back and I get to explain that dh is medically retired with a 50% disability.
Therefore, he is non-deployable.

ROTC Summer Camp

This "movie" reminds me of one time when dh was stationed at Ft. Lewis. He was in Field Artillery at the time and one of the tasks for the summer was helping to run the summer camp for ROTC cadets from the western states. This is a sort of pre officer basic course that cadets attend prior to graduation from college and selection for active/reserve as well as branch placement.

The cadets were tested on aptitude and the like and also attended "classes" and presentations put on by various units on post at the time.

My dh was involved with a skit type presentation on the 155 howitzer. Because they weren't allowed to actually fire a cannon off at the class area he wondered how he was going to impress upon these young minds the danger and power of such a weapon.....household 6 to the rescue.

I bought a bag of little green army men and made a sort of diorama before and after if you will. Before we see the platoon posed in their normal duty positions. After we see the mayhem and destruction caused by Artillery...hooah go REDLEGS

I had a lot of fun chopping limbs off the plastic men and painting blood splatter around the aftermath example.

It was a huge hit with the guys in the unit and the cadets. One Lt. Colonel thought that it was "really sick...I like it" I took that as a complement. Anyway, this clip sent me down memory lane.

Moving in

We moved into an apartment in the north end of town up by Mall of the Bluffs. It was on Morningsun Drive. Such a lovely name for a little street than runs along the backside of the Mall.
Anyway, our living room window had an unobstructed view of Pike's Peak. Elevation 14,110.


I know 14,000 ft is pretty big but, when you realize that you are looking at it from about 6300 ft. it loses some of it's grandeur. Granted I may be a little prejudiced for mountains that I grew up with.

Growing up in Western Washington we were graced with the presence of several large mountains in the Cascade Range. These Mountains are huge. Mt. Shuksan is elevation 9127 ft.



Mt. Baker is 10,778 ft.

Mt. Rainier is 14,441 ft.

All three of these mountains are viewed from sea level. Pretty awesome!

I do have to admit though, there is nothing like seeing the sun rise on the Front Range. In this picture we see Colorado Springs and Pikes Peak with Garden of the Gods. It's after sun rise sometime and does not capture the full effect but, you get the idea.

Army Green No More

I know change is constant but, really, do they have to do this. I won't know what I'm looking at.
The Army is changing the Class A and Class B uniform. It looks similar to Dress Blues. If you'd like to see the changes for yourself you can click this link:

http://www.militarytimes.com/projects/army_classa_flash/

I wonder if Field Artillery will have red legs and if this new uniform can be worn as Dress Blues or if they are changing those as well....hmm

Molly

Moving time

Two weeks before Thanksgiving 1985 we left western Washington in the middle of a snow storm and it followed us all the way to Denver, CO. We made it as far as Sunnyside, WA before we lost control of the car, did a circle in the middle of a 3 lane freeway and decided it was time to get off the road.

The next day we conquered the Blue Mtns. The Storm had caught up to us and now we were travelling in the middle of it. That day we made all the way from Sunnyside to Le Grand, OR. No, that's not very far, but when you are only gong 35 mph it seems like forever. In fact it did take us all day. Once we got there I promptly got myself locked in the bathroom butt nekkid. The door knob came off in my hand and try as we might (in between fits of laughter) there just wasn't any way we could get the door to open. Hubby called the front desk and they sent someone to fix the door. Meanwhile, I hid behind the shower curtain. The door was opened and nothing was hurt but, my delicate sensibilities. The maintenance man was very polite but, I was mortified anyway.

On we went thru Idaho, Utah and Wyoming, all beautiful country. When we got to Evanston, WY we pulled off I-84 and got a room at the flea baggiest motel we'd ever seen. Orange bedspread, olive green shag carpet and a two inch space under the door. It was long past due for redecorating. This was also the first place we saw drive up liquor. Coming from a state that only allows packaged beverages to be sold at state controlled liquor store's this was quite something to see.

The worst travel day was to come. When we pulled out of the motel the radio said that I-84 was closed. We were on a schedule, what were we going to do? We heard the Truckers at the restaurant were going to use "old hwy 30". We decided to follow them. In retrospect we should have stayed where we were. Almost as soon as we turned onto that old hwy we drove into a complete white out and the only thing we could see was a hint of red tail light in front of us.

We finally lost the light we were following and then were forced to pull over. That wasn't great idea. I mean we had no idea what was over there on the side of the road. We could have driven off a cliff for all we knew. This is where I cursed the idea of taking this stupid route. I wanted to go to San Diego and turn left. Then we couldn't sit there forever so we slowly pulled back on the road. When out of the mist I see I Cadillac with bull horns on the front headed right for us. We managed to escape injury and the weather cleared up when we got to Rock River, WY.

We stopped at the first post office/bar/drive up liquor and I ordered a double rum and coke. Blehh, it did nothing to settle my nerves.

Thankfully, the rest of the trip was uneventful. We arrived in Colorado Springs and commenced apartment hunting.

So, after a year at Yongsan my husband came back on a three week leave. During that three weeks we had to reacquaint ourselves. This was not as easy as we thought it was going to be. What with a death in the family and all that entails and having to have the engine rebuilt in our car. Packing and making arrangements for the movers to pick up our household goods. Then the various family members lobbying their positions as to where we should take the car to which route we should drive on our move or even whether we should stay married.

E4 pay in 1985 was barely enough for one person to live on, let alone two with a broke car and orders to report to Ft. Carson in 4 weeks. One family member took it upon themselves to hang around the garage where the car was and shoot the breeze with the mechanic. This included telling the mechanic how much money we had. Funny how when the bill came in it was exactly how much we had. Would have been nice to have a few extra $ left over to eat with or buy gas for the drive to Colorado.

Then there was the problem of dh wanting to know...where I was going...what I was doing...who I was doing it with and when I would be back. Sheesh, ya'd think we were married or something. :) I got used to not answering to anyone while he was gone. Now before you go thinking that he is a controlling so and so, you should know that hold respect between husbands and wives up there right after love and honor. I was not living up to my part of the agreement and was in need of an attitude adjustment.

With all this going on around us we were not much fun to be around and I will admit I was quite a shrew. At one point dh brought it to my attention that "hey, you don't have to go with me". This of course made me sit up and take notice. I remember I stopped saying whatever it was I was saying and considered his rebuke seriously. Wow, did I want to stay where I was? Or, did I want to go with my husband, travel to a new home and start our new life together? He did the most loving thing he could do by pointing out to me that I did have a choice.

My love for him grew by leaps and bounds that day. Yes I did want to go with him, I adjusted my attitude and thus began my journey as a wife 14 months after we said "I do".

Beginnings

Ok, so, a little back ground is necessary here to understand where I came from and how I ended up where I am today.

My honey and and I got married waayyy back in 1983. We were both unemployed and didn't have any business getting married but, we loved each other and love conquers all right? Well it has for 25 years so far.

So, there we were with no prospects and facing the end of the unemployment checks soon. DH wanted to go to school. We researched that and decided he should attend the local state college. They had just started their computer science program and we thought that would be a good plan. Unfortunately, we did not have a plan in place to pay for said schooling.

Que music ......Be........All..........That.........You..........Can...........Be

Oh yeah, and get money for SCHOOL.

After a lot of arguing, bickering and gnashing of teeth, we joined the army. I say we because it was a decision we both made. While he would be taking the oath, I would be standing by his side. Washing and ironing BDU's, sewing on unit insignia and keeping the home fires burning. Moron this later. Yes I did mean to say moron.

We had no idea at the time how this decision would change the course of our lives. Up until then we lived in Podunk pacific northwest and most of our peers had children and been divorced before we even got married. You know the place, people you went to high school with are still doing the same crap they did in high school today. We wanted something different for us.

Off he went to basic in Alabama. A three month course that turned into six. Culminating in Graduation to a one year unaccompanied tour of South Korea. Needless to say we weren't ecstatic about this since he had been gone for six months already. But, needs of the Army right?

To be continued.......